Chapter Text
“I can help you win this Landsmeet, you know.” Anora Mac Tir was, as usual, neat as a pin and glossy as a fresh-minted gold piece. Even uncrowned, even in the least formal of the gowns she'd been permitted to take into ‘imprisonment’, she looked every inch the queen that Eamon would argue she wasn't. Doubtless, Luna was meant to feel grateful for her condescension, while remaining conscious that she herself still stank of smoke and honeywine and the hundred other mingled scents of a really good Alienage party.
It was a neat set-up, if nothing else. A clever manipulation, to remind her of Anora’s wealth, her poise, her noble blood, all the traits that would lure the nobles of the Landsmeet to weight her words far more heavily than a pregnant Alienage girl with no husband, no prospects, and a blood-tie to an order of warriors who weren’t in anyone’s good books today. It was a shame, really, that she’d wasted all that effort to intimidate Luna, and succeeded, mostly, in reminding her of Marianna. Not in looks, of course — Marianna had been a study in chestnut and mahogany, rich, vivid colours that had matched her warm smile and luminous eyes. Marianna had always seemed lit from within. Anora, by contrast, had the half-translucent skin of a lady who’d seen very little of the sun, which, when combined with the pale gold of her hair, made her seem insipid. No, it was not her looks that reminded Luna of her first love.
It was the hair and the clothes, different in quality and colour, perhaps, but as neat as a doll’s in the window of a toyshop Luna would have pressed her nose to. It was the soft skin, unmarred by calluses, training scars, or freckles. Marianna had never hidden in a cellar, breath held, as humans with money and power and bloodlust hunted her people like the rabbits they’d called them. Anora had never walked beneath the baking summer sun until her skin reddened and blistered and split, or felt the white-hot pain of a spear running through her shoulder. They were beautiful girls, made lovelier, somehow, because they seemed so untouched by the sorrows that had too-often marred Luna’s life. Or at least, they’d seemed lovelier then, to her own, more innocent eyes.
Now, they only seemed unthinkably young, for all that Anora was her elder, for all that they’d been widowed within months of each other. What could a woman so young, so unscarred, possibly have to say to her?
Apparently that she could change the course of the Landsmeet, if she wished it. She was still smiling politely, if a little fixedly, awaiting Luna’s response.
She bit down on a number of deeply cynical responses, before settling on: “I’m sure you could, Your Highness.”
“Your Majesty,” Anora corrected, not unkindly, but as if Luna had made a minor, if illbred mistake.
“Your Highness,” she repeated. “I don’t think you’ve been crowned in your own right yet, have you?”
Anora’s smile might, on a face less perfectly controlled, have been described as a grimace. “Ah. Our gracious host has already persuaded you against parlaying with me, it seems. A shame.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” she lied. In truth, she wasn’t sure Eamon could persuade her to piss on him if he was on fire, but he had asked her to talk to Anora. Find out what she wants, he’d said. Find her price for peace, if you can.
She’d wanted to tell him to do it himself, but apparently it was her Anora wanted to speak to, so here she was, however awkward it was for both of them.
She continued: “You asked to see me. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I asked to speak with you,” Anora reproved her, which was awfully daring for a woman who’d demanded Luna rescue her less than a week ago. “That does imply certain hopes that you might listen.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” she said, sweetly, “Even in the Alienage, we’ve moved beyond grunting and pointing. Sometimes we even use words to say what we mean.”
Anora’s bloodless cheeks coloured a little, which was a surprise. “Forgive me,” she said. “That was- ungracious. I only meant- I hoped we could come to an understanding, if not an alliance. I’ve been led to believe you’re a reasonable woman, and if you’d like to avoid unnecessary politicking…”
“Forgive me,” Luna echoed her, arching a brow, “but this does feel an awful lot like unnecessary politicking, at least from where I’m sitting.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’ve been here five minutes already, and I’ve yet to hear why you actually needed to talk to me today.”
She could have still been nestled in a pile of bedrolls and blankets by the hearth in her father’s house, Morrigan’s loose hair tickling her nose. She’d been enjoying the familiar sounds and scents of home: her father pottering around his own room, Shianni’s log-sawing snores mingling with the soft purrs of Morrigan’s own breathing against her chest. She would happily have idled away precious hours pretending to be asleep, as if all she had to avoid was being dragged out to clean up after the impromptu festival, as if she hadn’t slept, not truly or deeply, until she’d been back beneath the roof she’d been born under.
Instead, she’d been hauled out by Eamon’s men at an hour that had felt ungodly even if it had, allegedly, been reasonable, under ‘her majesty’s orders’. It had become a bitterly familiar feeling, being dragged from her home at the whims of shem nobles, and she hated that she knew better now than to resist it, as she had on her wedding day. She hated that, when Anora had summoned her, she’d slunk back to Eamon’s villa like a dog awaiting a beating, obedient for all her petty rebellion now she was here. She hated that this woman, lovely and soft and unblemished as a doll, could sit in a prettily-appointed parlour and send soldiers into her home to fetch her with no thought for the harm they could do, and look confused — confused — that Luna might not feel entirely blessed by the invitation.
“I had hoped,” she said, wide-eyed, deliberately wounded, “that we might be able to come to an- arrangement. You seem a reasonable woman. I would like to think that I am one too.”
“I am not in the business of telling nobles what to think. Your Highness.”
Anora’s brows fluttered upwards, a millimetre or so, clearly unused to such calculated rudeness. “Have I offended you somehow, Mistress Tabris?”
“Is that all you wanted to ask?”
“Do I only get a single question?” At Luna’s expression, she must have decided she did not want to risk the answer to that being yes. “I invited you for tea, and a- discreet conversation between practical women. We have far more to gain from working together than from working at cross-purposes.”
“Ah, so your offer of help at the Landsmeet wasn’t entirely an act of queenly mercy and noble charity?” What a surprise. “What do you want from me, your highness?”
“A quid pro quo. A favour for a favour,” she clarified, when Luna did not respond to the Tevine words. “I’ll support Eamon’s petition to remove my father as regent… if you support my claim to the throne. There are hardly a wealth of other candidates, after all.”
“Eamon has a few names in mind.” She’d likely seen Alistair by now, if only from a distance. If she was as clever as she believed herself to be, she’d likely put those pieces together already, but on the off-chance she hadn’t, Luna didn’t have to do it for her. “Why should I make sure you’re one of them?”
“I’ve been running this kingdom since Cailan took the throne,” she said, immediately wrongfooting Luna. She’d expected a haughty dismissal, a refusal to justify her right to rule to a girl from a Denerim Alienage. But she was smart enough to recognise Luna’s help might be worth something. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that she’d already have had her arguments planned before demanding this meeting. “I will say freely this hasn’t been one of my better years, but before the Blight, things were running smoothly enough, and I certainly know more of rulership and governance than poor Alistair. I was raised to be a queen. From what I’ve gathered, he was raised to stay out of the way until Eamon needed him. Hardly a political education, you understand.”
“You could be right,” Luna said, caustically, “but that political education did very little to stop your own father from seizing the regency and making a puppet of you.”
A faint flush crept into Anora’s porcelain cheeks. “I’ll admit that I did not expect that particular betrayal to come from within my own family,” she admitted, “but my father- has always wanted what’s best for Ferelden, and for me. A regency, until the unrest was over, he hoped would preserve both. Even if it left him a villain in the eyes of the people, I would remain- untouched by the scandal, when I re-emerged to rule again.”
Like a butterfly in its cocoon, sheltered from the bitter elements, until spring’s warmth brought it forth again. What a gift it was, to have anyone to shelter her from the world’s cruelty. What a privilege.
“Untouched by scandal, maybe,” she said, “but will the Bannorn ever believe you can hold your own again, now they’ve seen you overruled by your father and ‘imprisoned’ by Howe?”
“If I can win Eamon’s support, I can bring the rest of them around.” She flicked her fingers, dismissing the thought, “and besides, who would you put in my place? That poor Alistair boy? Anyone who’s ever looked at him could tell he doesn’t want the job.”
“Some people might say that would make him perfect for it.” It had been one of Eamon’s arguments, and it was the closest she’d come to agreeing with any of them. She wasn’t sure she trusted anyone who wanted power to wield it wisely.
“From a purely ethical perspective? Perhaps.” Luna hadn’t expected even this token agreement. “But you do not strike me as so coldhearted. He seems a straightforward young man who appreciates clear goals and sensible orders.” She paused, then, more bluntly, clarified: “This place will eat him alive, piece by piece. He does not want to rule, and he will never be happy here.”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t be good at it,” she defended him, though she felt doubt creeping into her soul. “He wants to help people! He-”
“I did not say he was a wicked man,” Anora said, too gently, “merely that he is- ill-accustomed to the weight that ruling will place upon his shoulders.”
“Which your shoulders are, of course, so much more equipped to bear?”
“Do not be so-! I recognise,” she corrected herself, teeth gritted, “that you have little reason to love or trust me, but think. You do not have to like me to admit that Alistair is untried, untested, and unwilling, while I have been ruling the kingdom for years. There are decisions I am accustomed to making-”
“Of course,” she snapped. “You’re brilliant at ruthless decisions. Like who to lie to, who to test-”
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“Erlina certainly seemed to think you were being held against your will.”
“In a sense, I was.”
“And how many of the guards knew of that?” she demanded.
“All of them, I assume.”
“Did you bother to ask?”
“I have heard what you found in the cells beneath the villa. You cannot believe his men were innocent of such barbarism?” Her dodging the question was answer enough.
She hated to be forced onto the side of the shemlen thugs in Howe’s employ, but she recalled that grim dungeon too well. It had been guarded more by secrecy than by manpower, the entrance hidden even from the villa’s servants. A kitchen maid or a bootboy shoved into illfitting armour might never have known such a place existed, sealed away behind the locked cellar door. The men who’d been set to guard Anora had been the rawest recruits, too — boys too beardless and spotty to have been dragged down to the slaughter at Ostagar.
“Maybe they knew. Maybe they didn’t. They died at my hand, and I’ll never know for certain if they died to hid Howe’s crimes or because they truly thought they were defending their queen.” Anora opened her mouth, perhaps to defend herself, or to heap more blame upon the feet of the dead, but Luna continued before she could get a word in: “Tell me how I’m meant to trust you with a kingdom in your hands, when you used a sanctuary you were offered by an ally to lay a trap for me.”
“Not a trap,” Anora corrected, as if it mattered. “A test.”
“And that’s meant to comfort me? That you sacrificed them to test whether we were trustworthy?”
“I didn’t expect you to kill them!” Anora had raised her voice, but she snapped her jaw shut quickly, cheeks flushing more hectically at the slip in her control.
It was an effort to respond with what little shredded calm she could cling to, but a part of her knew that however much she might want to engage in a shouting match with the former Queen, little good would come of making an enemy with powerful friends and a coldly calculating mind.
Even so, she spoke through her teeth: “Your message said you were being held prisoner by the city’s arl in his private villa. He might be your father’s age, but older men remarry young widows every day, and some of them don't care if those widows wanted to take new husbands. You cannot be so naive as to think-”
But Anora’s fading flush spoke of an existence more sheltered than Luna had supposed existed, even among noblewomen.
“I- I am his queen-”
“And he's the most powerful nobleman in the city where your throne is, aside from maybe your father. I may not have been schooled in politics, but even I can add those numbers up.”
For a moment, she thought Anora might offer her up excuses: I was always meant for Cailan, betrothed from our cradles. I never so much as looked at another man. Nobody would dare threaten Loghain's daughter. But then she uncurled her hands from her fists, smoothed her skirts, and met Luna's gaze with that cool, steady, infuriating tranquility that felt far too close to condescension.
“This is why I wanted to speak to you,” she said. “You do not have to trust me to understand the help I can provide, if I speak for you at the Landsmeet. Conversely, I am sure Eamon has already lectured you thoroughly on the threat I could pose to his plans, left unchecked.”
“You're not exactly presenting yourself as unthreatening,” she pointed out. “And if you think repeating over and over that I don't have to trust you makes you seem more trustworthy-”
Anora arched a brow. It might have been devastating, if she could hold a candle to the terror Morrigan could strike into braver hearts than hers with a curl of her violet-painted lips. “You are blunt.”
Luna squeezed her eyes shut. She was getting a headache. “I'm tired of dancing around the point. What do you actually want from me?”
“I want you to talk to Alistair on my behalf. Persuade him to refuse Eamon, to let me continue doing the job he doesn't want.”
It would not be a difficult task. Alistair would take any excuse to avoid the throne, if he was offered it, and if it came from her, he'd be all too happy to accept whatever future she cast before him. Whatever he and Melia shared, a former Templar trainee and apostate mage could no more picture a future beyond the Blight than fish could imagine flying. Sometimes, when they were together, the three of them, she felt their eyes on her, on the expanding curve of her stomach, as if she was all the evidence of a life beyond the Blight either of them had ever seen. It should have been sweet, that her ducklings still admired her so, but something about that closeness made her skin creep, as though they were trying to crawl into it with her.
Perhaps it was selfish, that part of her agreed with Eamon's plot to set him on his father's throne. Her stomach twisted, even as some cold, monstrous part of her rejoiced at the thought that as king, he could no longer cling to her skirts like a child caught in a bad dream.
“Even if I think he'd do a better job of it than you?” She wasn't sure he would, not entirely, but she could not picture him scheming to send strangers to their deaths to test if other strangers would be useful to him. That had to be something, didn't it?
Anora did not look offended, though. The curl of her lips implied Luna was finally following the agenda she'd set for their conversation. “Then let us rule together,” she said as if it were the obvious solution, which, in fairness, it probably was to anyone who cared about politics enough to think about it without getting a headache. “If either of us are to rule, we would have to marry someone anyway. Why not each other?”
“I can't- he would never agree to that. He's in love with another woman, he'd never abandon her-”
“And I wouldn't ask him to,” she said, reasonably. “I'm not expecting his heart along with his hand. We're strangers, and Cailan- we knew each other from our cradles. Friends- husbands like him are not replaced as easily as kings. But as allies-”
“Allies, maybe,” she said, “but he'd never accept a loveless marriage-”
“He might,” Anora interrupted, tone mild, “if you were the one to propose it. Such arrangements are not unfamilar to you, I believe. Your betrothed was from Highever, was he not?”
“My husband,” Luna corrected, sharply. “And we were not strangers. We wrote letters, and we- we understood each other, or at least, what we were agreeing to.”
And I loved him, the distant memory of her wedding day insisted. I loved him. I must have loved him, when he loved me enough to die for me.
“Then help him understand me.” Anora's eyes were wide and dark and disturbingly guileless. “If I said all this to him, he'd run for the hills, but you- he trusts you, listens to you. If you suggest it, he'll at least give the idea a chance.”
“This was your plan all along,” she realised. “You knew I'd never agree to you ruling alone outright.”
“I hoped you might,” she said, frankly, “but we're both practical women at heart, I think. If marrying Alistair prevents civil war-”
“You could also prevent civil war by leaving peacefully,” Luna pointed out, which prompted only a cynical sniff from Anora.
“And retire to whatever convent Eamon deems dull enough to keep me out of trouble while he wrecks my kingdom as he has abandoned his own lands? No, thank you. I am willing to compromise and share power, if it spares the kingdom civil war. All I am asking is that Eamon and his- ward show the same willingness, if their concerns are really for the future of the kingdom.”
It was, when she put it like that, a frustratingly reasonable request. However much she wanted to argue, she’d seen the dead of Redcliffe, the people made helpless by their dependence upon a nobleman incapable of or unwilling to protect them from the threats that rose from within his own castle.
Even so, she was backed into a corner, and felt a sudden flare of sympathy for Morrigan. Is this what you meant, when you complained I’d leashed and gentled you, my fierce one? To feel herself made biddable, made obedient beneath Anora’s careful hands… of course she’d snarled and bitten back at her, even if all Luna had ever asked of her was shared warmth and tentative friendship.
She could see that Anora’s arguments were reasonable, perhaps even the smartest solution for everyone involved, and a part of her hated even more that she’d been pulled into this betrayal by reason rather than force. If she’d been threatened, or hurt, perhaps she could forgive herself. To agree with the other woman, purely because her solution made sense…
“He’ll hate this,” she murmured.
Anora’s smile was almost gentle, and Luna hated her a little more for it. “But he’ll do it, if you make him understand why it has to be done. Tell him the right kind of story, make him realise this is how he gets to save his country, be the hero-”
“He never wanted to be a hero.” She could almost choke on the knowledge of this betrayal that she already knew she’d been cornered into.
Anora’s eyes were dark and clear and, for a moment, seemed to see through her entirely: “Did you?”
She fled, before she had to answer her.
Alistair was pacing the floor of his room when she slipped inside. Melia, thankfully, was in the courtyard garden below, catching up on her mending in a rare patch of winter sunlight. She did not know she could have looked the other girl in the face and still gone through with putting Anora’s proposal to her lover. It was hard enough to get the words out to Alistair alone, to watch as his face went grey.
“You can’t be serious.” His voice rasped in his throat, as though she’d punched him hard in the gut. “I’d expect this from Eamon, but from you-”
“I know,” she soothed, or tried to. “I know, this isn’t what you wanted, but please, consider-”
“I don’t want to consider! I don’t want this! I never wanted this, and you’ve always known it!”
I don’t want this. It felt, in the moment, like such a childish complaint that she almost wanted to laugh at it. She hadn’t wanted any of this: the Wardens, the Blight, the fate of a kingdom resting upon her ability to persuade nobles who claimed to be born to lead to act like reasonable people… She hadn’t wanted any of it. She hadn’t wanted Alistair, cheerful menace at Ostagar or broken boy afterwards, hadn’t wanted to drag him out of the mire of grief when she’d have preferred to drown in her own. She hadn’t wanted to be the one to soothe his pain, to make his decisions, to guide him every step of the long road they’d walked together.
“I know what you want,” she said, and it was not as kind as she might have wanted to be. “This isn’t about what you want, you know that. If we pack Anora off to Gwaren, the first thing she’ll do is raise an army of her own to come and take her throne right back-”
“Then let her have the throne! She’s the only one who seems to want it! I never did.” He was pacing again now, in search of an escape he’d have to push past her to achieve. For a moment she thought he might, but instead, he caught her shoulders, crouched to meet her eyes, and again, she felt that strange, crawling revulsion that crept up her spine when they were too close, when he called her Lu.
“Please, you have to understand, even if Eamon doesn’t — I never wanted to be a king. I’ve never wanted any kind of power. All I want is the Wardens, and Melia, and- and you. The three of us, Wardens together, slaying darkspawn, going on adventures- hasn’t it been good, Lu? Despite everything, isn’t what we all have- something?”
Hasn’t it been good? The question made her want to scream, or to vomit. He sounded so childish- but then, hadn’t Morrigan always accused her of treating him like a child? Hadn’t she encouraged his pursuit of Melia, so her two little innocents could have one bright thing before the darkness beneath the earth swallowed them? Hadn’t she covered over Laryn’s body, told him not to look upon the horror of her death, to preserve his innocence as much as whatever was left of the dead woman’s modesty?
Hasn’t it been good? Had he ever known her at all?
She wrenched away from his grip, put three strides of space between them to keep herself out of his reach. She could not bear his hands on her skin, the horror and betrayal that seemed to overflow from him into her. She could not bear to hate him, but the hate was tangled up in all her affection for him, resentment running through love like the Blight in their veins, like mould in bread that had seemed sweet and fresh only yesterday.
“It doesn’t matter.” The lie crept out between her gritted teeth. “What you want, what I want- if Anora was capable enough to rule alone, Loghain would never have managed to push her off the throne. If Anora was good enough-” Those men in the Kendalls villa might have been given a fair chance. Or at least she would have sent Vaughan Kendalls to his death along with them. “You saw what her father did to my people,” she said, instead. “Her own maidservant’s people. She says she didn’t know, but she should have realised, should have done something- you would have. You’d never let slavers tear people from their homes.”
“Then- why make me marry her?” She did not need to look back at him to picture his extended hand, his desperate clawing for her arm, to make her face him, to make her understand-
As if she did not already understand too well.
She glanced back at him, feeling ancient and exhausted. “To keep her from raising an army. To keep her aimed at your enemies, rather than at you. To keep you from having to carry a burden you never wanted alone.”
Maker, but she was tired of carrying Alistair’s burdens.
“If you know this isn’t what I want-”
“There are more important things than what you want!” She hadn’t meant to snap at him, but it was too late now: he reeled back as if she’d slapped him, and somehow it only made her more angry. “There’s a Blight. People are already dying. The harvest’s already been bad. You want to follow that up with a civil war? Or with a queen who won’t know what it’s like to have been hungry, or scared, or hunted, who’s never seen an Alienage or even her own palace kitchens? How many people have to die before you realise you can’t always get what you want?!”
There was an awful silence, broken by a polite knock on the doorframe.
“The Senior Warden has summoned us.” Sten’s voice was, as ever, low, calm, steady. He had the strangest gift for making her feel like a quarrelsome child. “You will come.”
It was not a question. Sten had little patience for dithering. He turned on his heel and did not look back. He knew they would follow him. Usually, his certainty steadied her. Now, it felt like yet another chain pulled tight around her neck. Morrigan, I’m sorry.
Riordan was out of bed when they were led into the room he’d been assigned, but even propped up in an armchair by the fire, he still looked like a man who walked in Death’s shadow. The banked embers added little warmth to his pallid, grey-veined skin, and the shawl that Melia had wrapped around his shoulders only added to the overall impression of an invalid not long for this world. Melia was hovering at his shoulder even now, hands twisting with anxiety, but she seemed to relax a little as Alistair and Luna entered in Sten’s wake, as if their presence meant nothing too dreadful could happen. As if they knew what was about to happen, and would handle it more gracefully than she could manage.
Her stomach twisted. Her skin crawled.
Riordan nodded to Sten, who closed the door behind them. The creeping sensation, and its accompanying nausea, only grew worse as they were shut in, as if the Blight in her companions’ veins was running its tendrils across her skin, eager to get in.
There were only two chairs, one already taken by Riordan. Sten, accustomed to undersized southern furniture, took up his customary space by the door, a hand on the hilt of his blade, as if the pretty guest bedroom might at any point be set upon by intruders. Alistair looked to Luna, and then, with a sulky defiance that seemed almost calculated, sprawled in the other chair. Luna couldn’t bring herself to care, but Melia looked between them, nervous, before perching on the arm of Alistair’s chair nearest Luna, as if putting herself between them could force a compromise.
It worked, a little. Reluctantly, Luna drew close enough to squeeze her shoulder, and direct her attention back to Riordan. She wouldn’t have sat, even if Alistair had insisted. She would never let the stranger, the ‘Senior Warden’ who’d done nothing for her, for Ferelden, look down on her if she could help it.
He coughed, a wet, thick sound. Melia offered him a handkerchief. He spat into it, smiled apologetically, tucked it away. The smile did not reach his eyes. Nothing did. Despite looking half-dead himself, he looked as though he were sharing a room with four corpses, and that his was the unpleasant duty of informing them they should not still be walking around.
“Please know,” he began, “I assumed you had already been told, or I would have spoken of this sooner, the moment you freed me. I am sorry.”
“What is it?” Alistair's tone was curt, as close to snappish as he’d dare to get with a senior Warden. “What are you apologising for?”
However much he denied wanting the Crown, he’d take to it well. She already knew it in her bones, and hated the knowledge.
“Have you ever wondered why the Grey Wardens are needed to defeat the darkspawn?” The question set Luna’s teeth on edge. She loathed the sensation of him pulling the bandage off whatever rotten wound he wanted to reveal to them by slow inches, rather than ripping it off in one go.
“It’s the Taint, isn’t it?” She hadn’t expected Melia to be the first to speak, but she’d spent the most time with him, almost as eager as Alistair to find the home he’d promised her among them. “Nobody would drink darkspawn blood unless- unless it was the only way to stop them.”
“Quite right.” He smiled at her again, but it was still that same forced, thin-lipped expression. “The Archdemon may be slain, like any other darkspawn, but force alone is not enough. Its power, its essence, will pass through the taint, into the nearest darkspawn, and be reborn within its body, all but immortal. But if the nearest tainted being is a Warden…”
“The essence is drawn to the Warden instead.” Luna hated that he’d left the question open for her to finish, as if they were children to be schooled, or worse, as if he could not quite bring himself to admit it.
“And- what happens to the Warden?” Melia’s voice was tremulous, as though she already knew the answer.
Riordan sighed, an ancient, weary sound, as if, to him, they were children. “A darkspawn is an empty, soulless vessel, virgin soil for the Archdemon’s seed to take root in. But a Warden… A Warden is not so empty, do you understand? The Archdemon’s essence will be destroyed by the presence of another soul… and so will the Warden.”
“Meaning… the Grey Warden who kills the Archdemon dies?” Alistair’s hand tightened protectively on Melia’s waist. Luna felt her hands curl into fists. How dare he? How dare this stranger come to them now, and tell her that in trying to save her friends, she’d made them lambs for the slaughter? How dare the Wardens demand yet another sacrifice from them, from her? Was it not enough to rip her from her home, her family, her life, her well-earned death at her husband’s side? Of course it was not. Of course they demanded that she die for them. It could never have ended other way.
“That can’t be it.” Her lips felt numb, but she forced the words out anyway. “There has to be another way.” There had always been another way before, in Brecelian, in Redcliffe — kill the wolves or the elves, kill the mother or the child — there had been a way out, a third road to take. “There has to be some kind of magic, or ritual-
“It is the only way.” He looked at her with a deep, exhausted sorrow, as if she were a child trying to deny the reality of bedtime. “This is the Fifth Blight. Do you not think, over the years, that we have not sought an option that costs no lives, that keeps our Anointed brothers and sisters alive and at our side? If there was one, we would have found it, and perhaps, the Anointed among us would have lived longer lives. This is how it is. This is how it must be, or the Blight will never end.”
“One of us, then.” Sten spoke from by the door.
She felt a chill down her spine, as she knew what he’d say next, and tried to silence it: “You can’t-”
“If it must be done, it must be done. There is no point to crying about it.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t give you back your soul just to let you die for me.”
“Heroic though the offer is, that may not be an option,” Riordan said, too gently. “I can feel the Taint in you, and in Mistress Melia, but it is… weaker than it should be. The Archdemon’s blood in your Joining was diluted, perhaps too dilute. It might work, but… there are only three of us here with sufficient Blight in our blood to call an Archdemon’s essence from its body. If I can kill it myself, I will, but-”
Luna did not want to hear it, did not want to hear his offer, or Melia’s tears, or the arguments from Alistair she knew would follow it. Alistair and Melia had already turned their wide, childish eyes upon her, waiting for her decision, her order. They’d never ask her to make one more sacrifice, but they were young, and in love, and should the world not bend before them? Should their innocence alone not guarantee their happiness? Had she not squandered enough chances at her own
She stormed from the room, before rage gripped her completely, before she began to shed tears she did not want any of them to see. She hated them all. Worse, she loved them enough that she knew this would make no difference, not in the long term. She’d die for them, and they’d cut the child from her body, and pray that at nine months, it was closer to human than elven, and she’d be nothing more than a vessel, a vessel, a vessel-
“Seluna-” Hands on her shoulders, another body on the verge of colliding with hers. Morrigan’s low, sweet voice close to her ear.
On blind instinct, she pulled her close, buried her face in the curve of her neck, inhaled the scent of damp earth and burning magic that clung to her skin, felt the thrum of her pulse in her neck. You’re alive. We’re alive. For now.
“Luna-” Morrigan’s arm tightened around her waist, her other hand pulling her hair to force her to look up, to meet her eyes. “‘Tis only I. Breathe.”
“I’m sorry.” Morrigan looked startled, but they were the only words that came to her now. “I’m sorry, I should never have- you must hate me.”
She felt Morrigan’s sigh in the swell of her breasts, so close to her chin. “A little late for such apologies, do you not think?”
She laughed, bitterly. “A little late for everything. I can’t- Riordan said-”
“That to kill an Archdemon, a Grey Warden must be sacrificed?” Morrigan’s hand cupped her cheek, silencing the accusation that should have followed that revelation. “Little fool, do you truly think I would surrender you so easily to death?”
“I can’t let Alistair-”
“You could, though not easily, but you forget: I know what you are.” She drew her back through the door into the bedroom they sometimes shared, kicked it shut behind them with a dancer’s grace, never letting her go. She did not know if she felt comforted or ensnared, but she could not pull away. “Did you think I would let you suffer long in such knowledge? As soon as I knew he had called you, I came to tell you this does not have to be. You can live, Seluna. You can save them.”
She turned her face up towards her, blank, uncomprehending. “Riordan said-”
“Since when have we cared what men believe? Listen to me.” Morrigan’s hand on her cheek was the only warmth left in the world. “I offer you a way out. A way out for all your Wardens. No sacrifice, no bloody toll. Is this not what you would seek, if you knew you could ask for it? A ritual, performed before battle, that meant if you are fortunate, you will all survive it.”
She covered Morrigan’s hand with her own, as greedy for her rare tenderness as she was mistrustful of it. “You told me once that nothing comes without a price.”
There was a pause, and then Morrigan leaned in to kiss her — long and hungry and gentle as she never was. A kiss goodbye.
When she drew back, there was an alien sorrow in those honey-gold eyes. “You are not my little fool any more,” she sighed. “Of course there is a price.”
She rested her hand on Luna’s stomach, and the world suddenly grew dark and distant around them. She stumbled away from her, back slamming into the closed door. “You cannot mean-”
“You know what I mean. The child has taken much from you: your will, your freedom, your body. This it can give you: your life. Is that not a worthy exchange?”
“But- it will die?”
“I know not. I hope not. If Flemeth was correct in her research, a child unborn can absorb the essence, and survive.”
“You hope-”
“It is better than the certainty of your death, is it not?”
She could not recall if, in the nine months they’d known each other, Morrigan had ever stood before her, arms open, eyes pleading, heart, for once, unguarded. Hadn’t she wanted this? Hadn’t she wanted Morrigan’s ribs splayed open, to understand the truth she hid at the heart of herself? There was a version of her, moments ago, a lifetime ago, who’d have run into those arms, sought out the only real solace she’d found in the long months of horror. Why could she not stir herself now, to run, to fight, or to embrace her? She did not know. She did not know this Morrigan. She did not know herself.
“How long?” she rasped. Morrigan stared at her blankly. “How long did you know?”
“Does it matter?”
It was such a horribly Morrigan question that she would have laughed, if laughter had not belonged to another woman, another world.
“How long?” she repeated. “Did you learn it from the grimoire I found in the hut? From the book from the Circle?” She did not answer. She did not have to. “Maker, Morrigan- you knew from the start?”
It should not have hurt the more, that Morrigan could not meet her eyes. “I knew,” she admitted.
“And you never told me?”
“I am telling you now-” She cut herself off with a swallow, hands raised in helpless defence of a plan she would not, could not-
“You know that isn’t what I meant!”
There was a silence, then, and for a moment, she feared the other woman would simply leave, and take her secrets and her promised salvation with her. But she did not leave, though it seemed to take all her will: hands curled into fists, muscles tensed against their own inclination to flight.
“Seluna. Luna.” Why now could she say her name with tenderness, like it was bittersweet in her mouth? “If you had known from the start, would you ever have trusted me?” Her voice was low and raw, as if the truth of this pained her as much as it did Luna, as if they were both in this moment betrayed. “Would you have ever believed that any help I gave you, any advice I offered, was genuine?”
“Was it?” she snapped. Morrigan did not reel back, but a nerve in her cheek leapt, as if she’d expected the blow, and steeled herself from flinching. “Was- was any of it real?”
Her legs felt suddenly weak beneath her, and she would have clutched for the wall if she could have bourne revealing such hideous weakness now.
“I- I have never lied to you.” She could hear the tremor in her voice, even if she could not bear to look at her, and she leapt upon her weakness like Styx upon a wounded deer:
“That’s not what I asked!”
“I- what do you want from me?” Morrigan demanded. “I am trying to help you! Is the debt I owe you not already sufficient? Are the chains you have bound me in not heavy enough? What more will it take for you to trust that-”
“Did you ever- care for me? Even a little?” Not love. She could not use that word for what they’d shared now, could not even admit the name of it to herself, as it crumbled to ash between her fingers. “Was it ever about me, or was it about this?” She clasped a hand over her belly, felt the child — her own little traitor within — kick against it. “A vessel for whatever you were planning?”
“‘Tis not so- Flemeth wanted a vessel,” she insisted.
“So even though she’s dead, we still dance to her tune? What would Flemeth even gain from keeping a Grey Warden from dying to slay the Archdemon? What will you gain?”
Morrigan closed the distance between them and took hold of her hands, weaving their fingers together before she could wrench them away. “The soul of an ancient god, cleansed of the Blight, and born anew. Something ancient, precious, and beautiful, brought back to the world after too long an absence. I know you, Luna Tabris: the Ashes, the Lady of the Forest, even those foolish stories you refuse to release. You understand that there are some things too precious to be discarded, simply because their time has passed. You would never say that they are not worth saving, or not worth the risk it would take to preserve them. In this, we have always been alike.”
Luna had not meant to look up at her, to succumb to the threat of her closeness so easily, but she could not resist it. As she spoke, Morrigan seemed lit from within by a flame she’d never seen before- no, that was untrue. It was a familiar fire she’d seen first in Orzammar, kept banked, kept tame, kept contained within the limits of her skin, now finally pouring through it. She might have called it passion. She might have called it love.
Perhaps that was why now, she could not pull away, even as she breathed: “And my child?”
“Your- Luna, if it lives, it will be no mere mortal infant. You will bring an ancient power back into the world! Is that not wondrous?” Her eyes were lit from within, molten gold, brighter than all the burning rock of Orzammar. She did not understand.
Luna took hold of her wrist, bruising tight, and pressed her hand beneath her shirt, to the bare skin of her stomach. “But will it be my child? My husband’s child? The child I’ve been carrying all these months-”
“I-” The fire in Morrigan’s eyes flickered, and then went out, her expression shifting to something cold and determined and far too familiar. “It matters not. Whatever you birth after the Ritual will not be your concern.”
She swallowed. “Now we come to it. You can’t really expect me to-”
“You want to live. You want the others to live too.”
When she put it like that, brutal and blunt, the choice was obvious, even if she hated her for it, even if she hated herself for knowing it. They both knew she’d kept the child less out of maternal tenderness than out of love for her own life, and unwillingness to let circumstance force her hand. Even now, as it stirred and writhed and kicked out at her spine, it was as much a foreign army within her body as the Blight had ever been, sapping her strength for its own survival with little care for what it cost her.
She wanted to keep it, wanted to cling to it as she’d clung to the vhenandal, when Duncan had dragged her from her home, but she wanted it with that same stubborn perversity of will that had kept Nelaros’ ring on her finger, the bloodstained rags of her wedding gown in the bottom of her bag. She wanted not the reality of motherhood but its potential: the singing promise of the life she might have led, without the world getting in her way.
How could she ask someone already living, someone she already loved, to die for a child that might not live to take its first breaths? Plenty of children did not survive their births. Plenty more did not survive the weeks that followed it. How could she ask Alistair or Melia or Sten to sacrifice their lives, their futures, because she could not surrender her grip on a future that had died, stillborn, on her wedding day?
She knew her answer, the only answer she’d ever been able to give, and still, some part of her was determined to drain this cup to its bitterest dregs, to make Morrigan feel a scrap of the pain she felt at this betrayal.
“Was any of it real?” She’d meant to sound defiant, but her voice crept out small and weak and hopeless, a plaintive little plea for something she could not name. It was worse, somehow, that this was what broke something in Morrigan’s steeled expression, that tightened her grip to bruising on Luna’s arm.
“If I say yes, would it change anything?” she said. “If I say ‘do this, save yourself, I cannot bear to see you die’, will you listen? Will any love you’ve planted in my heart matter to you, when I reap the harvest we sow tonight?”
“I will never forgive you.” It was an answer, and it was no answer at all, but still, she kissed her as though the world was ending. In a small, quiet way, it already had.